What If AEW Expands to 12 PPVs Per Year? Possible Event Names
The idea of All Elite Wrestling expanding to 12 pay-per-views per year has long been a discussion point, even when the company wasn’t fully formed. Lately, that speculation has grown even more with reports that Warner Bros Discovery might be looking to implement that strategy going forward for AEW.
Whether or not it does happen remains to be seen. All the ins and outs of putting these on the Max streaming service and whatnot are elements we don’t know, either. But if it does go through that this is a strategy AEW wants to try going forward, one of the questions that needs to be answered is what to call those extra events that would be added to the calendar—and that’s something that I find fascinating.
Currently, AEW hosts 5 regular pay-per-views: Revolution, Double or Nothing, Forbidden Door, All Out and Full Gear. Those annual shows have become staples and would likely stick around. That means if we assume those aren’t touched, there needs to be 7 more events added to the lineup, and since AEW doesn’t have the backlog of years and pay-per-views like WWE can pull from, there’s less to work with.
More than likely, brand new names would be created that we couldn’t possibly guess. I would go so far as to say Tony Khan has a track record of using gambling related terminology, so we could see at least one, if not more, revolving around those types of terms. But your guess is as good as mine when it comes to those.
Thankfully, there are some events AEW has done in the past that can indeed be repurposed, although there are even more that I think don’t quite fit the bill, too.
Let’s break down some of the options from AEW’s past and some potential avenues they could explore.
How Does Ring of Honor Factor In?
One of the first questions to ask is whether or not ROH would be considered part of these operations. Technically, they’re supposed to be a separate company, even though everything has been treated so far as though ROH is effectively NXT compared to AEW/WWE.
If Warner Bros Discovery were to change its course and work more with the ROH side of things, then that accounts for at least 3 more events already with Supercard of Honor, Death Before Dishonor and Final Battle.
On top of that, AEW could bring back other names used in ROH history, including: Best in the World, All Star Extravaganza, Survival of the Fittest, Man Up, Undeniable, Respect is Earned, New Horizons, Driven, Rising Above, Caged Collision, Take No Prisoners, The Big Bang!, Honor Takes Center Stage, Showdown in the Sun, Boiling Point, Field of Honor, Glory by Honor, War of the Worlds, Global Wars, and more.
While I think there’s a chance those main 3 ROH shows could be lumped into this, I don’t think it’s a smart idea to just bring back these older names on top of that. Frankly, for my tastes, I think even Final Battle is a bad name, but these other ones are mostly REALLY bad. And when it comes to something like Caged Collision, that just offsets the Collision show.
Survival of the Fittest would be the main one I would like to see utilized, as tournaments can work super well and this can even become their King of the Ring or G1 in theory.
But what I would like to see is the addition of an AEW vs ROH event. This could effectively be Forbidden Door style or more like Survivor Series / Bragging Rights with a brand warfare concept. It might even be how they could repurpose a name like War of the Worlds, All Star Extravaganza, or Best in the World. This could even be an event without treating the ROH pay-per-views as part of the 12.
The Blood & Guts Problem
Most people would probably say Blood & Guts would be their first choice to be added to the lineup. I think that would be a mistake on two fronts.
First and foremost, haven’t we learned from WWE’s errors with Hell in a Cell and TLC? Those events neutered those gimmicks because instead of being gimmicks that happened only when feuds dictated them, it turned into “Well, it’s October. Time for us to shoehorn in a Hell in a Cell match even if the feud JUST started.”
Blood & Guts should be reserved for only special occasions that mandate having 4 vs 4 or 5 vs 5 inside a cage—not that it just occurs every July or whatever.
On top of that, even though you and I might think that it’s ludicrous, there are plenty advertisers out there that would HATE to promote a show with this name. AEW has to think of the business side of it and not just the cool factor.
Can it be done? Sure. Is it worth the hassle? Absolutely not. Save it for a gimmick that is brought out when necessary as a special attraction that can happen on any pay-per-view, potentially.
Fyter Fest / Beach Break
One of these two should absolutely be added to the lineup, but I don’t think there’s a need for both of them.
Having one beach themed event makes sense. It gives them an aesthetic theme that they can build their set around, and they clearly like that after they’ve done that so many times over the years.
Fyter Fest has been around longer. If you’re going with seniority, that one takes the spot. But that is a parody of the Fyre Festival and I don’t know if AEW really wants to continue to be that type of company that is always making a joke of things. Beach Break is a little bland, but it feels more AEW homegrown and universal to me.
In any fashion, one of these should be a shoo-in guarantee.
Battle of the Belts
We’ve had nearly 10 Battle of the Belts specials, and they’ve collectively been almost entirely worthless. None of the titles ever change hands and often, the matches are made up of challengers that couldn’t possibly win anyway. They’re just matches for the sake of eating up another hour of television here and there.
Now that AEW has Collision on Saturday nights, there’s even less of a reason to keep these going. WBD has more AEW programming now with that show in a month than they did with the BOTB specials per year combined.
But why not reuse this as a Night of Champions type event, where all the titles are on the line? Granted, AEW tends to do that normally on other pay-per-views, but if they were to expand to 12 per year, there’s less of a chance that happens all the time. In fact, I’d argue it’s almost guaranteed an event like Double or Nothing might not have the TBS and TNT and International and FTW and Trios and Tag Team and Women’s and World titles on the line, as well as Revolution, as well as (etc etc etc). Some non-title feuds would dictate spots on the card instead.
BOTB could be the guarantee that at least once per year, every belt would be on the line as the focal point above all others.
This gets a major thumbs up for me.
All In
This may be a controversial opinion, but I think it’s obvious that All In shouldn’t be on the lineup. It’s ridiculous to have 12 events a year and name one All In and the other All Out. Why not also just make All Right, All Left, All Up, All Down and so on? AEW Shake It All About coming soon.
All In should be saved for absolutely special benchmark challenge type shows like the original one and this Wembley event. Basically, the idea should be “we’re the lesser established company and we are told we can’t sell out this massive show, so we’re going to prove it” and that is it.
If AEW does an event at Narendra Modi Stadium, which holds the biggest capacity in the world (132,000) then yes, call that AEW All In. But don’t use this name for some local college arena or just running another show at Daily’s Place or whatever.
The Pros and Cons of Remaining Special Event Names
There are about a dozen other names AEW has used for different special shows over the years that we still need to break down. Some of them could work, but they’re a stretch. Others absolutely shouldn’t be even remotely in the running to become an annual pay-per-view.
- Bash at the Beach = Nope. WWE has the trademark back. How AEW got away with that one show is still baffling to me.
- Royal Rampage = Nope. Way too close to Royal Rumble, and since Rampage is a television show, it shouldn’t be tied into a pay-per-view.
- Slam Dunk = Nope. Don’t name an event after a basketball term.
- Grand Slam = Nope. Again, this is a baseball term more than anything else and since it is tied more to a location, I don’t think you should limit yourself to having an event HAVE to take place at that spot every year.
- Homecoming = Nope. This is another location one and the title just doesn’t sound engaging enough.
- Holiday Bash / New Year’s Smash / St. Patrick’s Day Slam = I’d ultimately vote no on these, but I can see them having potential. They pop up at the same time every year, similar to Halloween Havoc, and they can take place anywhere. These are in the maybe pile, but I think you can really only have 1 of them. New Year’s Smash would be my choice.
- The First Dance = Absolutely not.
- Quake by the Lake = Nope. Location-based. Use this if you pop up in the same area for a special episode of Dynamite and nothing more.
- Winter is Coming = Absolutely not. This is tied too much to Game of Thrones. Don’t name your events after other programming. That’s like WWE having a pay-per-view called Superstars: Infinity War. It’s always reeked of desperation to me when ECW would have their awful names that parodied other things or tried to capitalize on more widely known pop culture references.
- Road Rager = This one has potential, but it did originally act as a celebration of being back on tour. Doesn’t it lose some of its *umph* with that no longer being the case? Ultimately, I’d be down for it if they couldn’t think of anything else, as it is MUCH better than a lot of the other alternatives listed here.
- Fight for the Fallen = I don’t know about this one. It technically was a pay-per-view, but unless they want to have it happen in the same spot all the time AND continue the charity aspect of it, I think it might be best to have this as a special show that pops up once in a while, but NOT an annual pay-per-view. Plus, the title isn’t all that amazing in my mind.
Verdict
Given this breakdown, here’s what I would personally go with, in no particular order for the calendar year:
- Revolution
- Double or Nothing
- AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door
- All Out
- Full Gear
- Fyter Fest / Beach Break
- Battle of the Belts as a Night of Champions type show
- AEW vs ROH event (possibly named War of the Worlds, All Star Extravaganza, or Best in the World, but ideally given its own new name)
- New Year’s Smash
- Road Rager, maybe. If not, something new.
- (something brand new)
- (something brand new)
+ ROH events:
- Survival of the Fittest
- Supercard of Honor
- Death Before Dishonor
- Final Battle
What would you like these events to be if AEW does expand? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
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